"We've seen the slowest recovery from a recession in history," Romney told a rain-soaked crowd of 500 supporters here on Monday. "As a matter of fact, I just read that if you look back 60 years, and you look at all the months we had with unemployment about 8 percent before President Obama, there were 39 months in all 60 years with unemployment above 8 percent."

"With this president, there have been 43 months under one president alone," Romney continued. "He does not understand what it takes to create a real recovery. I do."

The remarks came as Romney rushed through his second public appearance of the day, a rally at a park in Newport News, that the campaign chose to begin early and cut short due to a downpour that showed no sign of abating.

Romney gushed over the crowd, who cheered him as he hit on his economic talking points, as well as two of the three more personal anecdotes he began telling this weekend.

Video: Race tightens four weeks to election day

Closed captioning of: Race tightens four weeks to election day

>>presidential race
and a new poll showing
mitt romney
now leading
president obama
. we'll talk about that with
senator john mccain
in just a couple of minutes, but first nbc's
peter alexander
is on the campaign trail in newport news,
virginia
. peter, good morning.

>> reporter: matt, good morning to you. as you noted, this race appears to be tightening now with exactly four weeks to go, and on monday
mitt romney
, trying to present himself as a plausible commander in chief, attacked the president saying that the
middle east
has become a more dangerous place than when
president obama
took office. the latest
pit stop
in
president obama
's effort to reach his fund-raising goal of $1 billion,
san francisco
.

>>we cannot afford to be complacent, and we cannot afford to be cynical. we've got to look back at the progress we've made, and that should give us confidence, but we have to understand that we've got a lot more to do.

>> reporter: in
virginia
, a reinvigorated
mitt romney
may as we will have been
singing in the rain
, a downpour.

>>people wonder why it is i'm so confident we're going to win. i'm confident because i see you here on a day like this. this is unbelievable. thank you so much!

>> reporter: romney
may have new reason for new confidence, passing out mcdonald's to reporters on his plane and greeting two
elementary school
students. two national polls show a volatile race after last week's lobsided debate. in the latest pew poll the republican nominee leads the president by four points among likely voters. last month the same poll showed
romney
trailing by eight points. still, a new
gallup poll
shows mr. obama five points ahead among
registered voters
, regaining ground after last week's encouraging jobs report. looking to beef up his
foreign policy
credentials ahead of the final stretch,
romney
accused the president of weak leadership in the
middle east
. failing to capitalize on the arab spring uprisings and delivering the harshest response yet on the administration's response to the deadly attacks in libya.

>>it is our responsibility and the responsibility of the president to use america's greatest power to shape history, not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.

>> reporter: calling for a change of course,
romney
offered few new policy details, citing syria's
civil war
,
romney
saying he would support our allies arming rebels there. former secretary of state
madeleine albright
gave the
obama campaign
's rebuttal.

>>i'm a professor. if one of my students turned it in they'd get a "c" because he gave absolutely no specifics.

>>it's getting close here in michigan. can you help push us
over the top
.

>> reporter: ahead of this week's
vice presidential
debate on monday
paul ryan
attacked what he considered the democrat strategy.

>>it seems pretty clear that their new strategy is basically just call us liars, to descend down into a mud pit and hopefully, with enough mudslinging back and forth and distortion, people will get demoralized and then they can win by default.

>> reporter: and to give you a sense of what some may describe as the absurd back and forth in this election season, take a look at this. this is a new ad just out this morning from the
obama campaign
. it mocks
mitt romney
's plan to eliminate federal subsidies for
public broadcasting
, sarcastically calling
big bird
a, quote, menace to our economy, matt, on the level of bernie madoff.